54, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
Among the Farmers—No. 1. 
BY ONE OF THEM. 
Farmers, I believe, always like to read about 
other farmers and their ways, at least I do ; and 
next to the fun of commenting yourself upon the 
way your neighbor does his work, is the fun of 
having somebody else comment on it. I spent a 
few weeks last fall among some pleasant farmer 
folks a good distance from here, and their mode of 
life—their walks and ways, actually as well as figura¬ 
tively are so different from ours, as well as, upon 
the whole, so good and thorough, that I am in¬ 
clined to make them better known. 
Customs that come down from a remote anti¬ 
quity, whilst almost everything has changed, ought 
to have some good in them. Variations in long- 
established habits are not made without some real 
or fancied advantage. I will not say but that our 
ways are a great deal better than those of European 
farmers, but that when we criticise their systems 
fairly, we must take into account their surround¬ 
ings—their customs, markets, roads, expenses, etc., 
as well as soil and climate. 
It was mostly among the farmers of the Channel 
Islands that my time W'as spent; and since my re¬ 
turn I have been surprised to learn from conversa¬ 
tion with neighbors and friends—many of whom 
would be shocked to have it suggested that they 
were even “rusty” as regards their geography— 
how Jew people know what and where the Channel 
Islands are. So it is worth while briefly to say, 
that on the northwestern coast of France, between 
the cities of Brest on the west and Cherbourg on 
the north, there is a deep jog like a little bay of 
Biscay, so to speak. In this bay there is a group 
of small islands which own allegiance to the Queen 
of Great Britain, and are sheltered under the wing 
of the British government. The two larger ones 
are each about as big as Staten Island. These are 
Jersey, the largest of the group, and Guernsey. 
Alderney is very much smaller, and Sark smaller 
yet. They are in plain sight of the French coast, 
and of one another. The people speak French as 
their mother tongue, but all that one is brought 
in contact with speak English well also. The 
islands are famous for their healthful, mild climate, 
as a resort for invalids and for quiet pleasure-seek¬ 
ers, being neither warm nor cold the year round ; 
for their excellent granite, for their early potatoes 
and fruits, and for the breeds of butter-producing 
cows which have originated upon them. Those of 
Alderney first became famous in England, and gave 
their name to the Channel cattle. This was un¬ 
fortunate, especially as the breeds of Guernsey and 
Jersey are quite distinct in their characteristics, as 
is now well known. 
Channel Island Farming. 
Imagine what a change it would make in our 
farming if we could be set down in a country where 
the buildings are all of stone ; farm-yard fences 8 
or 10-foot walls laid in cement; the roads, so hard, 
and of such easy grades, that fully double the loads 
can be drawn upon them that it would be safe to 
draw in this country ; the principal fences of the 
farm, living ones, growing upon ridges or earth- 
walls, and needing only a little dressing and repair¬ 
ing occasionally, to turn cattle for a hundred years 
to come. This condition of things really exists 
there, and though, at first thought, one might say 
it has little to do with farming, yet it is not so. 
We complain of high taxes—at least, we suffer 
from them. Yet, do not we tax ourselves more 
than we are taxed, twice over, by building unsub¬ 
stantially, by submitting to have poor roads, and 
by making fences which can last, at most, only a 
few years ? I saw buildings known to have stood 
since the 11th century—built, to be within bounds, 
four hundred years before America was discovered. 
If a house is built to stand, and well built, it will 
last a good while, and children’s childreu for gener¬ 
ations may play under its eaves. People did not 
even know how long a thatched roof would last.— 
Clearly, the thatching of one generation was a good 
roof for the next. Tile-roofs were regarded as 
much better, however, and the old straw roofs are 
gradually being replaced by tile and slate. Thus 
the landscape is likely to lose a very picturesque 
feature, but the change will be so gradual that 
another generation or two will still be familiar with 
the mossy thatched roofs, which look like such 
warm brooding shelters to happy households, or to 
snugly stabled kine. 
Stone Sties anil Byres. 
Where stone abounds, and is easily gotten out 
and wrought in useful shapes, I found it always 
extensively employed for building purposes, in 
ways too which seem strange to us. Stone for 
houses, and barns, and stables, strikes us as quite 
the thing—very good, but expensive—but when it 
comes to stone pig-sties, I think most farmers 
would shake their heads and say, that this was car¬ 
rying thoroughness and durability too far for profit. 
Yet look at it. I saw a great many sties, in which 
there was not a particle of wood, except fora single 
outside door. Usually, small feeding-rooms ex¬ 
posed to the weather were upon one side, and yards 
into which litter was thrown to be worked over 
were upon the other, with the sheltered sleeping 
quarters between. In the walls, which formed the 
front of the feeding-rooms, stone troughs were' 
placed just above the stone floor of the pen. These 
were, of course, accessible to the pigs from the in¬ 
side, and conveniently so to the farm hands from 
without, both for pouring in the feed and for clean¬ 
ing and washing them out. In some cases the en¬ 
tire length (ft the trough was accessible from out¬ 
side the pen ; in others, a stone sliute was made 
through which to pour the feed. Pigs so penned 
have nothing to gnaw, and they cannot get to the 
ground to root, for the whole floor is flagged. 
Those parts of the pen which it is desirable to keep 
clean—namely, the feeding and sleeping-rooms— 
may be swept and washed out as easily as any 
floored apartment s. In such a structure, durability, 
security against damage from fire, from decay, 
from vermin, and from disease to its inmates, are 
secured. In the matter of freedom from rats alone 
there is almost incalculable advantage—for con¬ 
sider the fact, that trichina and measles (tape¬ 
worm), parasites with which pigs are frequently 
afflicted, are disseminated by rats greatly more 
than by any other cause. 
The cow-stables, or byres, are usually made with 
most of the inside work of stone also—giving great 
durability and freedom from allurements to vermin. 
We might easily introduce the stone or cement 
feeding-troughs—as for the stone floors they are 
another matter—very good, under many circum¬ 
stances, but not better than oak ones for our pur¬ 
poses—especially with barn cellars. The feeding- 
troughs vary in shape and in construction. I no¬ 
ticed those that were each cut out of one piece, 
others consisting of slabs of stone set in cement, 
and others still made altogether of cement. Where 
stone can be conveniently got in slabs ten to 
eighteen inches wide and two or three inches thick, 
feeding mangers for cows may easily be made by 
bedding the edges of these in a mass of cement 
laid upon a grouting of broken stones ; the slabs 
being kept from falling apart by long bolts or 
clamps of iron, and the partitions being of pieces 
cut in the proper form. 
Cleanliness. 
In these byres, and about the farm buddings 
generally, among well-to-do farmers, cleanliness 
for its own sake, is the rule, though there are, 
as with us, exceptions. They husband manure 
more carefully than we do, and the loss of the 
liquid parts is rarely seen. One reason for this is 
doubtless the close proximity of the barns to the 
dwellings. In many cases the farmer’s dwelling 
forms one side of a quadrangle, the cow byres and 
dairy rooms a second side, the barn the third, and 
a high wall with arched gateway, the fourth side 
against the road. While on the subject of cleanli¬ 
ness, let me allude to the cleanly way of milking 
that prevails in the Channel Islands. 
The Way of Milking. 
Though I believe the Jersey milking-can has 
often been described, yet, before going there, I had 
never known how it is used. The can is of tin, 
globular, with a flat bottom and a rim around it. 
The upper part of the globe is open, and has a flar¬ 
ing top, which is about 8 inches in diameter at the 
edge. A handle, like a pitcher handle, is upon one 
side, attached to this flaring top. When in use, a 
rather closely woven linen napkin is tied over the 
top, and under the handle, so that it will sag down 
into the can to a depth of three inches or so. In 
this sag of the strainer a seashell is laid—one of 
the shells of a scallop being usually employed. 
The streams of milk strike into the shell, and the 
foam soon rises and nearly fills the strainer; specks 
of falling dirt mostly rest upon the top of the 
foam. Those which are carried down, wash over 
the edge of the shell, and lie beneath it. There is 
no spattering, and the milk is obtained entirely 
free from hairs and specks of dirt, while soluble 
dirt, which sometimes falls in, comes as little as 
possible in contact with the milk. 
Hoads. 
I was curious to learn by what system the public 
roads were kept in such excellent repair, and found 
that it was by a very simple rule—one which, with 
a little trouble, auy community, except one upon 
the prairies, or similar stoneless region, may adopt. 
That rule is to keep all soft ground and vegetable 
growth off the road-bed, and to fill all depressions 
or spots where water will stand at all, with finely 
broken stone—the hardest that can be obtained. 
The stone-breaking is done by hand, with light, 
long-handled hammers, and either contracted for,or 
in some places used as good employment for crim¬ 
inals, or for charity labor. This lust is a kind of 
labor which we do not employ as we might in this 
country. Poor folks, with us, are left alone, or 
fed by their neighbors, until they are fairly “ upon 
the town ” ; then they are sent to the poor-house, 
and their children bound out. If some such work 
as stone-breaking were provided, at which barely 
enough to provide food could be earned, people 
out of work in the winter, or at any time, would 
be glad to do it. Where this work is done by charity 
labor, I noticed it was altogether job-work. Boxes, 
without tops or bottoms, are provided of uniform 
size, being about 4 feet long, 18 inches high, and 2 
feet wide. When full of broken stone, the in¬ 
spector can lift one end or the other a little, and 
get out a shovelful almost anywhere, and when he 
“passes” it, the box is lifted off, the stones fall¬ 
ing off on all sides on a regular slope. The prism- 
shaped heap is then thoroughly spriukled with 
whitewash, so that no lazy fellow can steal any of 
the stones to fill his own box, and also to prevent 
adjoining proprietors from purloining them to 
dress their private ways with. 
In Jersey they have been recently—I don’t know 
how recently, but within the memory of man— 
making some fine, broad roads, in which the prin¬ 
ciples of McAdam and of Telford have been follow¬ 
ed to a greater or less extent, as occasion demanded. 
These roads are therefore known to have, at least 
in soft ground, a foundation of large stones, proper¬ 
ly laid upon a drained bed ; these topped with 
coarsely broken ones, and these with small ones ; but 
how the most ancient roads were made, it is hard 
to tell at this day. There are no zero nights there, 
and no upheavals consequent upon frosts coming 
out of the ground from a depth of three or four 
feet. Where such freezing occurs, especially on 
clayey land, there is no absolutely good road pos¬ 
sible, unless the land is drained thoroughly, and a 
stone roadway built upon that, as above described. 
In bowling along upon the perfect roads of Eu¬ 
rope, I have often thought over the changes such a 
state of things would produce here. How many 
wagon-makers and wheelwrights would it throw 
out of employment ? How much money would be 
saved to the farmers’ pockets ? What would be 
the effect on all concerned, if one horse could do 
the work on the road that we need two for now ? 
Would it not almost pay in two or three years for 
having the roads put in such order ?—Such an oper¬ 
ation takes time, and the thing to do, is for com¬ 
munities to work into it by degrees, making the 
cost so small at any one time as not to be observed. 
High Rents Paid, for Land. 
When high rents are paid for farm land, and but 
little larger crops are raised, and but little higher 
